


Fallen

by aceofsparrows



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22285963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofsparrows/pseuds/aceofsparrows
Summary: Orpheus meets another soul Below who has his own story to tell.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Fallen

Everything was so dark. Orpheus had known it would be dark– it was the underworld, after all– but this was darker than he’d ever thought possible. 

It was cold too. So cold his breath pooled in the air around him as he walked, billowing like frost, tiny crystals sparkling in the darkness. 

The road was long and winding, just as Mister Hermes had warned him. But Orpheus had his lyre and his song, and somehow he had made it this far. Pausing at the foot of the giant wall that loomed in front of him, Orpheus’ fingers fluttered at the strings of his instrument. 

_La, la la la la la la…._

The seams between the bricks glowed red, and Orpheus took a deep breath and tried again. 

_La, la la la la la la…._

A crack formed in the bricks, and the stones crumbled, hot mortar dripping like tears from their fissures. 

_Wait for me, I’m coming…._

The crack widened, and eventually it was large enough for Orpheus to slip through. He shouldered his lyre, taking a deep breath and– 

“Wait!” 

Just as he was about to step through the weeping wall a voice called out in the darkness. Orpheus paused, frowning at the shadows. 

“Who’s there?” He called into the darkness. 

“Who’s there?” The voice echoed back, thin as the wind that howled in the corners of Orpheus’ psyche. Was this a trick? 

He took a step towards the voice. 

“Hello? Who are you?” 

“Who am I? I don’t know…” The voice sounded so sad… Orpheus took another few hesitant steps in its direction, and a shape began to form in the shadow of the wall. 

It was a boy. A boy with wings. 

Orpheus frowned. A boy with wings? Who’d ever heard of a boy with wings? 

“What’s your name?” He asked, voice soft. The boy kept his head down, shaking it slightly. 

“I… I don’t know…” 

“Okay….” Orpheus was almost to him now, and when he reached the hunched boy he crouched next to him, brow knitted in concern. 

“I don’t know. _I don’t know._ I used to know, I…. I….” He looked up at Orpheus, and at the pain in his unfocused eyes Orpheus took in a sharp breath. In the darkness, the boy’s irises were impossibly light, a blue so pale they practically shone with their own luminesce. He was fair-haired and slight, with long bronze curls that brushed his shoulders and his small frame was crumpled under the heavy weight of his broken wings. 

And suddenly, a story Mister Hermes had told him long ago surfaced from the recesses of his memory, and Orpheus knew who this poor boy was. 

“Icarus…” Orpheus breathed, dropping to his knees in front of the winged boy. “You… you’re Icarus. And your wings…” Oh gods, his wings. They were large and cumbersome, but even after the heat of a long-forgotten sun had melted their wax Orpheus could tell the detail they had been crafted with. 

“Icarus…” the boy said, tilting his head at Orpheus, a hollow question in those bright eyes. “Icarus, yes…. but why am I here? Why is it so dark and-and cold? I remember… I remember the sun, and the heat, but it all feels so far away…” 

Orpheus bit the corner of his lip, worrying for a moment what he should do. It seemed wrong to leave the boy here, but he doubted Mister Hades would grant him two souls out of the underworld, and Eurydice was who he had come for in the first place. 

“Icarus, do you remember why your father built these wings?” Orpheus asked slowly, and the boy looked puzzled for a moment. 

“We… we were…” he paused, frowning. “The king was mad, so we escaped. My father… my father built the wings so we could fly away from the island…” 

Icarus paused again, and then a look of deep sorrow and regret fluttered across his face as he remembered what had happened next. “He told me to follow him. He said I had to be careful, not fly too high or too low, lest the wings melt or get wet. I…. I didn’t listen to him. I didn’t listen…” 

Icarus sobbed, his blue eyes brimming with tears, gaze clear and broken. 

“I didn’t listen… I should have listened…. I didn’t…. I didn’t… _oh gods_ …” 

Orpheus’ hands fluttered in the air near Icarus for a moment, unsure of what to do. Finally he decided the best thing to do was give the boy a chance to get away by himself. After all, he was on this side of the wall, not the side of Hadestown, so perhaps there was a chance he could make it back on his own. 

Orpheus, touch light as air, carefully unstrapped the broken wings from Icarus’ back, dragging them aside and helping the boy to stand uncertainly. 

“Do you see that path that snakes back that way into the darkness?” Orpheus asked, pointing to the worn path he had followed so dilligently in his descent. Icarus sniffed, nodding. “Follow that path, through its twists and turns, and eventually you will find the Above. Go, Icarus, save yourself,” Orpheus told Icarus, squeezing the boy’s hand briefly in reassurance. 

Icarus blinked at him, then nodded. “Thank you.” 

“Go.” 

On trembling legs Icarus disappeared into the shadows. Orpheus watched his retreating form until the darkness swallowed him, and then he turned back to the wall. The hole he’d made with his music was still dripping tears of red-hot mortar. Soon, it would fill again and the opportunity would disappear. It was time for him to go. 

Taking a deep breath and resisting the urge to look back and confirm Icarus had disappeared into the darkness behind him, Orpheus shouldered his lyre and ducked through the crack in the wall into the bright, neon hell of Hadestown. 

It was time to go get Eurydice. 


End file.
